The no-holds-barred tale of a Chicago-based thirty-something living the so-called dream

Why yes, I have been missing in action. Thank you for noticing and caring. The holidays are a stressful time, what, with all the shopping and traveling and drinking to survive the whole thing, so no, I have not had time to document my ridiculousness-filled adventures…until now.

(insert evil laugh here)

So I recently made the trek back to Pennsylvania to visit my family for some pre-holiday festivities. Two weeks early, but at least I avoided all the annoying once-a-year holiday travelers. Well…almost all of them.

There’s always that one annoying traveler that you wish had conveniently gotten stuck in traffic or overslept or just had one more cocktail so they’d pass out in a booze-induced coma on the flight so you don’t have to listen to them. Perhaps it’s karma, but I always seem to get stuck in the seat next to them, behind them, or just in their general vicinity where I’m too close to block them out with an veritable dance party in my ear buds…even at max volume…but oh wait, I’d accidentally packed them in my checked luggage. Screwed.

So here I am, sitting in row 22 when Sallie Mae (or whatever annoying name she had been named) strikes up a conversation with the family across the aisle. Mind you, she’s in the window seat so she has to lean across the gentleman she’s sitting next to to have this conversation. Poor thing. He must have kicked a puppy or something to end up with the bad karma he was about to have.

As if her high-pitched voice wasn’t enough, she refused to shut up. The whole. entire. flight. And of course, beverage service was not being provided…go figure.

On and on, for over an hour and a half, she blathered on about how she knew this person and that person and grew up in such-and-such neighborhood and was related to so-and-so and how she was just in a wedding for her friend, “that really pretty blonde cheerleader who used to date this guy…you know, the football QB in high school? You remember them, right?” Right…because I’m sure they were the only ones in the history of mankind.

Oh, and of course her sister is a teacher with a student named La-a, you know…pronounced “La-Dash-Uh because you pronounce the dash.” I find this hard to believe, because everyone’s heard this story. I mean, there’s even an Urban Dictionary entry about this from 2010. At this point I began to realize this girl was completely psychotic. Come on, hun, get a new tale to tell.

It took me everything I had in me not to pull an Elan Gale on little Miss Sallie Mae. Seriously, sweetheart, the poor guy whose bubble you’re invading doesn’t care. The family across the aisle doesn’t care. Newsflash: No one on the airplane gives two shits about your family tree, your friend tree, the wedding you were in, nothing. You’re annoying. Sit back, order a cocktail, shut up, and enjoy the flight.

The modern misadventures of a twentysomething transplant from Nebraska, trying to navigate Chicago. Many gays love meddling with my life, for better and for worse. Fortunately, I'm a less horse-faced version of Carrie Bradshaw, that, unfortunately, never gets any action.